Sally Leigh Mills
Jonathon David Cochran
Ethics of Development in a Global Environment
June 2, 2004
Bruce Lusingan
Media Biases in Post 9/11 America:
The Effect on Presidential Popularity
Throughout the history of the United States, media has been the
source in which the public receives information over all aspects of life,
both within the borders of the United States as well as foreign matters
deemed important to the American public. The media plays a very
significant role in day to day life within this country, but also has a large
impact on long term decisions due to certain events that are taking place
all over the world. Unfortunately many of the events that have been
reported on from overseas are during such instances as wartime that our
country has endured. During the wartime events many aspects of the
conflict can be reported on, including conflicts and fights that occurred,
humanitarian aid acts that the United States Armed Forces contributed
to, rebuilding projects, casualties of the day, and many other possible
topics, both positive and negative. The media uses propaganda and
other techniques to put controversial twists on political issues, in this
instance post 9/11 events. This in turn has a direct effect on the
popularity of the president, hurting his popularity after a while despite
attempts from the government and other entities such as large
corporations to control the mass media.
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Propaganda and Past Instances of War and Bias in the Media:
The positive and negative aspects of any story can always be
covered and whichever is covered will put a certain outlook on a situation
that could be looked at from a completely different stance. In these
instances the reporter’s judgment makes the decision of how to report on
a specific event which leads to a bias forced by the aspects that the
reporter thinks are pertinent. Karl Kraus, German playwright and
philosopher, whose propaganda helped lead to World War I, viewed
journalism in a very interesting manner. “[Kraus] saw the journalist not
as a messenger of bad news so much as a producer of it” (Coker 52).
With journalists producing the bad news if something should go wrong
with a plan put forth by a president, who is constantly under the
watchful eye of the media, it will be exploited. Not only the presidents
mistakes will be blown out of proportion; therefore, during wartime,
when there is bad going on throughout our country, the effect will be
amplified by the media. Similarly Kraus stated, “A newspaper was as
much a weapon of war as a grenade… Journalism had so impoverished
the imagination that humanity was now prepared to fight a war of
annihilation against itself” (Coker 52).
Reporters and the media as a whole use very selective word choices
when writing and/or covering a story, because as the journalistic society
knows simple word manipulation can effect on how a story is perceived
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by the public. As Christopher Coker argues that the mass media has
injected words into wartime events to raise a greater emotion out of the
public.
Nuclear missiles soon became ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
War became ‘conflict’. Winning was too loaded a term.
Nations preferred not to win, but to ‘prevail’. ‘First strikes’
and ‘second strikes’ masked the full impact of a provoked or
unprovoked attack. (1994, 51)
In addition to word manipulation the media can also use many words
that will associate a person with an organization or political faction to
create a familiarity associating a person with a more well known aspect
of the coverage. When the coverage of events of is following a
presidential decision, such as the declaration of war, the media has a
significant impact on presidential popularity due to the journalistic
reverberation of events. Word manipulation is distinct part of
Propaganda put forth by the media to inspire the public to react a certain
way towards our Commander in Chief.
Propaganda put forth by the media during war time has a
great influence on the American public. Here we will introduce
what the media does in general to talk about terrorism and
wartime issues and how they use certain tactics that link
propaganda and semantics to get a certain concept across. It is
argued today that “what we perceive and how we think are
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restricted by the language we speak” (Schaffert 67). So by
choosing to use specific words, reporters and journalists can twist
the facts to make propaganda seem to be all about lies. Inherent
to propaganda models are four basic elements: (1) the target of the
deception, (2) the medium for delivering the message (the atrocity),
(3) the purpose (the influencing of political behavior), and (4) the
truth (the facts that are to be distorted). Elizabeth and Alfred Lee
of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis developed what they call
the “Tricks of the Trade” that are used in propaganda. The first
they call “bandwagon” which refers to telling the public that
everyone else is accepting the concept and they should join the
crowd. The second called “name calling” implies that the media
affixes a derogatory label to a concept encouraging rejection. This
one seems to be one of the more prominent means to condemn
something. The third is the opposite of the latter. The fourth is
called “testimonial” where the media connects a popular or disliked
personality to a concept encourage its acceptance or rejection. The
fifth they call “card stacking” which is a selectively accumulating
fact or fiction to support or discredit a concept. Sixth is called
“transfer” which relates a concept to an existing generally accepted
or rejected program. The final “trick” is called “plain folks”
portraying the promoters of a concept as ordinary people, therefore
the concept in acceptable (Schaffert 66-67). The combination of
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these tricks and models, the mass media has no problem
controlling the minds of America.
The era leading up to World War II was one filled with
propaganda, put forth by the government and the media alike to
control reactions of the public surrounding decisions that were
made to begin combat. There was a lot of propaganda put forth by
our opposition also, Hitler’s Nazi party used propaganda to gain
strength within Germany, and eventually the party became so
strong that he was able to overthrow the government and take
control. The propaganda used by our government and media was
largely used to arouse patriotism within the United States.
Propaganda was use in many forms to reach the public when
trouble started overseas. The signature of this era of propaganda
were posters arousing many different ideas, but evoking one
response, to work together to beat Hitler.
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With posters such as these portraying everybody in America
being able to help win the war, the United States became a unified
nation and popularity for our troops and our President soared to
an all time high. Our president at the start of World War II was
Franklin D. Roosevelt who had been in office since 1932. When
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
Roosevelt made a very important decision that would affect his
popularity. He immediately started setting up and alliance to fight
the Axis powers which is currently known as the United Nations.
With this in place Roosevelt’s popularity grew to an all time high
and propaganda helped his cause. He would have gone on to win
another election; however, during a vacation at Warm Springs,
Georgia, on April 12, 1945, he suffered a massive stroke and died
at the age of 63. His death came on the eve of complete military
victory in Europe and within months of victory over Japan in the
Pacific.
Legitimization of political terrorists and terrorism is another way
that the media uses their press to influence the thoughts of Americans.
The public’s perception of terrorism can be swayed by legitimizing
terrorists guilty of heinous crimes, thus sucking the public into the
events involved with the terrorist and then makes is easier for the media
to attack the concept and make their side the believable one (Schaffert
64). By creating a figure for the public to hate, the media is able to gain
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support easier for their cause, and thus they are able to have power over
Americans.
The mass media has caused drastic popularity shifts within the
population of the United States of America surrounding many wartime
decisions. These shifts are heavily influenced due to the media’s
perception of the president’s decisions. The media’s role has made great
influences on many instances especially during the 20th and now 21st
centuries. Occurrences of hostility directed towards citizens of the
United States seem to have been steadily rising over the last 70 years.
One of the many influential instances of the media contributing to
the demise of a president’s popularity was during the Iranian Hostage
Crisis of 1979 and 1980. Within the time from then president, Jimmy
Carter’s, formal news conference, on November 28, 1979, that informed
the nation of the events that had transpired in Iran, 24 days prior, to
Carter’s exit from office in 1980 his popularity endured many changes.
From November 28 to his State of the Union Address on January 23,
1980, Carter’s popularity was steadily growing with the help of the
media. However after this time period Carter’s popularity fell drastically
due to a significant shift in the media’s perception and coverage of how
the president was handling the hostage crisis. The reason for the initial
surge in Carter’s popularity was suspected to be results from the media
making the Iranian Hostage Crisis parallel the siege that had taken
placed earlier in 1979 in the United States Embassy in Tehran which
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was very short-lived. However in the period prior to the State of the
Union Address the media focused on those members of congress who
were very critical of Carter and his progress to remove the hostages from
their situation.
Republican Senator Robert Dole was covered very heavily
surrounding this issue due his disbelief in President Carter and was
quoted as stating, “it becomes increasingly clear that pleading with the
Ayatollah is producing no tangible results” (Nacos 107). With opponents
of the president so high up in the government being covered and quoted
in such a manner there was little hope for Carter to retain his position in
the White House. In fact following Senator doles remarks many
members of the media began attacking the president for doing nothing in
his time in the oval office. David Broder of the Washington Post asked of
Carter during a broadcast of Meet the Press,
With all due respect, we still have 5.8 percent
unemployment. Inflation has risen from 4.8 percent to 13
percent. We still don’t have a viable energy policy. Russian
troops are in Cuba and Afghanistan. The dollar is falling.
Gold is rising. And the hostages, after 78 days, are still in
Tehran. Just what have you done, sir, to deserve renomination? (Nacos 110)
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Less than a week following Senator Dole’s remarks and Carter’s
lashing on Meet the Press his popularity began to fall dramatically.
Within a two month span, February and March of 1980, Carter’s
popularity with the American people dropped over 12 percent due
to the negative publicity he had received on national television
(Nacos 110).
During this entire conflict in Iran, President Carter was very
willing to address the media with his thoughts on the activities in
Iran. What is now being called the “rose garden” strategy, relied on
Carter being very open with the American public surrounding the
conditions and terms that were being negotiated in attempts to
keep the hostages alive. Many academics believe that this strategy
of not downplaying the crisis and making sure the press was
writing about it led to the demise of the President. With this
approach came a major saturation of the media and as Susan
Carruthers comments, “the US networks’ insatiable interest in the
Iranian Embassy siege placed undue pressure on Carter to act
resolutely, thereby throwing his subsequent impotence into greater
relief” (Media 174). Due to the mass media in the United States
interest and the rose garden strategy valuable efforts to return the
hostages to the United States were disrupted by the many attempts
of members of the media’s attempts to contact the perpetrators in
hopes of gaining some extra insight into their reasons for the siege.
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Also as we see today satellite feeds from the locations were used
throughout the siege which greatly hindered rescue attempts that
the white House attempted. The lights necessary to produce
footage for the nightly news often completely illuminated the
streets surrounding the Embassy, which made it impossible for a
ground based rescue attempt. Consequently President Carter’s
actions would have to be carefully thought through to not make a
huge scene when trying to rescue the hostages and with limited
options, more time is needed. President Carter needed time to
perform operations; however, that is the only he didn’t have at his
expense once his popularity ratings started to decrease.
What is newsworthy and what isn’t gives the media an edge over
what is important and what isn’t in the world. Due to the shear fact that
the media can choose what that want to cover and what they want to
keep quiet makes them the ultimate power holders of the public. By
making concepts “’newsworthy,’ media executives can exercise ultimate
authority, with no appeal, on what information will be broadcast or
published for public consumption and what information will be ignored”
(Schaffert 67). We will see lots of examples of newsworthiness in the
timeline of post 9/11 events.
In the end after looking at everything that the mass media can do
to get its point across, we find that media is power; if one has control
over the media one has a sort of control over all America. Theodore H.
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White once said that “power, said Karl Marx over a century ago, is
control over the means of production; that phrase, said Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., recently, should be changed – power in America today is
control of the media of communication” (Nacos 16). Roger Hilsman
observed, “No one doubts that whoever controls the press wields power”
(Nacos 16). Media gives a sense of legitimacy to stories and people, what
is written then becomes the truth. Hilsman again says that if we
recognize that “one dimension of power can be construed as the ability to
have one’s account become the perceived reality of others” then we can
understand the role of media in power. Those who are able to get their
stories in the mass media are more likely to have the authority over
American people.
During the Vietnam War the mass media was largely integrated
with troops for the first time, which presented an interesting situation for
the United States military since largely the could no longer control what
was written over the days occurrences. With this new obstacle within
the war the military and the government as a whole suddenly became
more cautious with actions that were being taken because quickly the
media began exploiting actions taken by the United States. The country
was widely dispersed with anti-war activists and the media was adding
fuel to the fire every single day by reporting on the negative aspects of
the United States and their actions. Although the reporting was hurting
the government and specifically the president’s, who happened to be
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Lyndon B. Johnson at the time, popularity; the fact is the government
and military had no right to censor the media throughout the Vietnam
War. This comes from the United States Bill of Rights, which was written
in 1791. Amendment 1 states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances (U.S. National).
The military and government have used the case of war as a basis
for being able to take control of and censor information that
normally should be the press’ responsibility to report to the
American public. However, due to Amendment One of the
Constitution the military and government cannot specifically
censor what information and actions are being covered, but have
instated a nation wide self-censorship program during the time of
war.
The parameters that were set for reporters, especially
reporters that are embedded within companies of soldiers, are they
have the right to cover whatever they want, but since this is a time
of war they should not report on anything that could jeopardize
other troops. This program was needed very badly within the era
of Vietnam; however, the press was so widely against the war that
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the government had very little control over what was being covered.
Members of the press were including violent and graphic details in
their reporting because an arms race of who could get the most indepth or racy footage of action in Vietnam began. The arms race
ultimately led to the demise of not only the Military, but onto
President Johnson. There came a point in which words couldn’t get
the message across so reporters started using gruesome images
left nothing to the imagination. Like this picture depicting a
Buddhist monk who has undergone immolation to protest the war.
This is one of many typical images that the American family would
see throughout the news broadcasts and throughout the
newspapers every day during the war.
With images such as these, American’s quickly realized the horrors
of war; however, without the media’s coverage of humanitarian aid
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that the troops provided for members of the South Vietnamese
public, Americans had only one vantage point and this was very
negative.
As Johnson’s popularity shows throughout his tenure during
the war, the media coverage led to a drastic decrease in his
popularity with the United States public. The decrease was so
great that LBJ pulled out of the presidential election in 1968 on
March 31, 1968 following is four years in office. Later that year
Richard Nixon won the presidential election with 43.4% of the
popular vote. At the start of Nixon’s presidency he enter with
obvious support of the public and the media so, the media cooled
their intensity on Vietnam, because it was expected that Nixon
would pull our troops out of Vietnam. However, to keep his
popularity at a reasonably high level he somehow kept bombing
raids under wraps and withdrew 60,000 troops from Vietnam in
September of 1969. Once the bombing raids continued Nixon was
largely constrained by the press the way Johnson was throughout
his tenure of the war. Both were highly criticized throughout the
press in Vietnam as well as the members of the media who
remained in the United States for their actions during this war.
Following the Tet offensive under Nixon’s administration, beloved
anchorman Walter Cronkite commented, “The only rational way
out then will be to negotiate, not as victors but as honorable people
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who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best
they could” (newseum).
Timeline of Media Coverage of Post 9/11 Events:
No one will forget where they were when the start of today’s world’s
mess began, when the September 11 suicide hijackings began. How did
the media cover the atrocity and what effect did that have on the public?
In turn what effect did this have on Bush? Obviously there were feelings
of fear, pain, sadness, and many other feelings unique to each American.
However, it was the way in which the media chose to cover this event
that jacked up the hysteria and fear to such great heights. With such
titles as “A Day of Terror” and “America under Terrorist Attack” it helped
get to a state of fear where all they knew to do was look to the president
for help. The photograph of the Twin Towers is an example of the type of
pictures being displayed in the media and such, terrible almost surreal
images of fire, smoke, and fear. Also, headlines and pictures began to
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appear commemorating and celebrating those who helped save lives at
“ground zero,” like in the picture below for example.
Titles like, “America’s Heroes” and “Home of the Brave” did a great job of
rallying support and patriotism for America, and respectively for Bush.
Just as suspected, after the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s popularity skyrocketed
to a near 90% approval rating (Russell 1). This was most likely directly
link to the type of reporting and coverage done for these attacks,
instilling fear and patriotism in the public so that they would look to the
president for what steps to take next.
Only three days after the Twin Towers incident a threat of
infections to the drug anthrax poured over the news. Noting that its
effects could be lethal to those exposed to it, the anthrax scare created a
sort of mass hysteria among the American public, while at the same time
rallying up support for Bush and war against terrorism, mostly because
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the anthrax threat was immediately assumed to be from the same
terrorists as befell on the country just three days prior. “The media, with
the tacit encouragement of the Bush administration and congressional
leader, encourages the notion that the anthrax attacks represent a
second wave of Middle East-based terrorism, following the September 11
suicide hijackings” (“US Anthrax Scare” 1-2). Basically as long as it
seemed possible to attribute the anthrax scare to Osama bin Laden or
some other foreign terrorist, shrieking headlines and such from
government official were okay (“Once again” 1). For one it seemed as
though the anthrax scare was somehow a justification of the Bush
Administration’s intervention in Central Asia, but that notion at that
time was kept out of the media (“Once again” 3). It is interesting to point
out however that after investigations were done it appeared that the
anthrax came from domestic sources. Thus the threats become largely
unreported in the media (“US anthrax scare” 2). “The staggering fact,
however, has been met with a strange silence by the media, government
officials and the Democrats themselves, including the two senators who
were targeted. As the military link to the attacks came to light, the
media sought to blunt the significance of the exposure (White 1). The
government justifies the cover-up and anti-democratic actions of the
government as necessary steps in the “war on terrorism” (“US Media
Silent” 1). Thus the media was still able to keep up a positive image on
Bush and keep the level of patriotism up at this point in the post
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September 11 drama. Sure enough, according to the polls, Bush’s
popularity remained fairly high (Russell 1).
With the passing of the anthrax attacks, the issues with finding
Osama bin Laden and capturing and prosecuting others linked to the
9/11 suicide hijackings came into focus in the mass media. First the
media uses labeling and specific terminology to enhance the idea that bin
Laden is the ultimate bad guy of the century. For example he is known
by the FBI and an “international terrorist and he has been called a
terrorist mastermind as well by other media organizations. He is also on
the FBI’s most wanted list and is know as one of the most dangerous
men in the world today, and the media tends to use the same headshot
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that the FBI uses deeming him a terrible criminal even more, as in this
image of bin Laden
The media also has used the tactic of legitimizing the enemy. By doing
so and making the terrorists political figures, when they are labeled as
terrorists that labeling has more authenticity to the public. So the media
demonized bin Laden for quite a while until that was drown out by the
fact that he wasn’t found. The media really had an effect on the bin
Laden and Afghanistan issues when major networks did not cover the
innocent civilian casualties that were being suffered in Afghanistan for
the sake of Bush’s popularity with the American public. “Doctors
Without Borders has stated that civilian casualties are already in the
hundreds and rising (NPR, 12/6/01). However, “on the high end, a
compilation of international press reports by a University of New
Hampshire professor suggests there might be over 3.500 civilian deaths”
(Action Alert 1). As said before “none of the three major networks’ nightly
newscasts are offering even rough tallies of the mounting civilian
casualties in Afghanistan” (Action Alert 1). The media has even gone to
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lengths to suggest that “Afghans don’t mind being killed by US bombs”
(Action Alert 1). I am sure any person minds being killed at least a little
in war; this was just one of the media’s ways to get their beliefs into the
public’s minds. NBC correspondent Dan Lothian gave a report about
America’s battle “’to protect its image as a compassionate nation”’
basically trying to portray reports of civilian casualties as an attack on
America (“Action Alert” 2). As time went on Bush’s popularity was slowly
decreasing but the media was able to keep it at a low rate (Russell 1).
The Iraqi Regime under Saddam Hussein has been widely
thought of as a cruel dictatorship. Saddam Hussein started his
political career in 1958 when he successfully assassinated then
military leader Abdul-Karim Qassim in a coup known as the Baath
Coup. Hussein was involved with a decade long war that was fought
between Iraq and Iran. During this time Hussein started secretly
creating warfare that consisted of nerve agents and other forms of
chemical agents. Hussein made a name for himself in the United
States and the United Kingdom public when he invaded Kuwait which
led to Desert Storm in 1990. Hussein has been working very
diligently since the conflict to produce warheads again. Recently the
United Nations have found some warheads that had been hidden for
quite some time. When discovered the media in the United States
brushed off the news and didn’t pay much attention to the findings.
Therefore in a complete reversal from World War II, there was very
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little propaganda supporting a conflict with Iraq and subsequently
the public of the United State had very little knowledge of what was
taking place in Iraq.
Members of the media that received notice that warheads had
been discovered began questioning President Bush’s intent for the
eventual actions that the United States was going to take in Iraq for a
second time within a decade and a half. These questions were finally
answered on December 12, 2002 when President Bush gave a speech
to the United Nations about the intent of the United States. Within
the speech President Bush told of immediate and harsh actions that
were going to be taken if Saddam Hussein did not comply with the
United States’ demands. The statement that took the world by
surprise and started this media frenzy was, “The Security Council
resolutions will be enforced, the just demands of peace and security
will be met or action will be unavoidable and a regime that has lost
its legitimacy will also lose its power” (Bush). Along with this threat
President Bush presented many reasons in why the UN should act
against the Iraqi Regime. He included such facts as Saddam
Hussein’s blatant disregard for UN resolutions in “over a decade of
defiance” and Iraq’s capabilities of producing and firing nuclear
warheads (Bush). As the United Nations knew, no new evidence was
presented in Mr. Bush’s speech, but it was obvious to them that Iraq
had to do something or action would in fact be taken soon. Iraq was
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presented with this threat while four representatives from Iraq were
in the audience for President Bush’s speech; the interesting part was
the four representatives remain emotionless throughout the
President’s address.
Following this speech the president had a severe decline in his
popularity ratings. Members of the media were referring to Bush’s
address of the United Nations as a smoke screen of sorts to enter Iraq
for reasons either than what was stated during the speech. As seen
throughout the coverage of the first days of conflict many news
broadcasts were keeping a close eye on one of the many oil fields in
Iraq. The media started a by pointing that the president wanted to go
to war with Hussein simply to gain control over his massive amounts
of oil.
After the explosion of bombs and war in Iraq settled a bit the media
began rallying for support to rebuild Iraq and help them get out of the
state they were in. On March 20, 2003 the US launched the first air
strikes against Iraq after Bush’s ultimatum expired (“Iraq Timeline” 5).
On May 1, 2003 President Bush declares the end of major combat
fighting in Iraq and even before that, the US Commander started sending
air and naval forces home (“Iraq Timeline” 5). However, despite Bush’s
requests, there was and is still continued fighting in Iraq. From May 1,
2003 to July 20, 2003 many US troops were killed because of escalating
unrest in Iraq (“Iraq Timeline” 5). As everyone can remember, despite the
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happiness that many felt that the US was taking strides to help rebuild
Iraq, there was more unrest over America’s troops still being in Iraq.
People saw signs and bold headlines screaming to bring our troops home.
There were sob stories on main media channels such as CNN and PBS,
and even NBC talking of sons and husbands lost to this fighting. The
media was able to project these feelings and concepts well, thus America
too followed along. Since May, President Bush has suffered severe
decreases in popularity because this time the media decided to report
everything instead of hiding certain facts, or at least twisting the facts
(Russell 1). Recently, Bush’s popularity has been reported to have
reached a record low most likely because of an accumulation of things
reported and the atrocities covered involving the tortured Iraqi prisoners.
The media did the job of making American soldiers and the war in Iraq in
general to be something appalling and inhumane well.
Pictures such as those in these photographs are good examples of the
way prisoners were being treated, although these are deceased, and how
it is highly understandable why people are so against the war and thus
Bush’s population is declining.
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Manipulating the Media:
Up until a point the government seemed to have a strong hold on
the media, the government had control of the media thus is had control
of the people and total power. It is evident though that Bush’s popularity
went from fairly high, and is now at its record low. Knowing that the
government has this reasonable level of control over mainstream media,
why then did the popularity of Bush go down so low if he is the head
honcho of the government? How then also was he able to manipulate the
media to gain support in the first place? Overall throughout the entire
timeline of post 9/11 events it is evident that what the media chooses to
report and how they report it has a direct effect on how the public feels
about how the president is doing his job.
Many magazines and sites on the internet warn of government
control of the media, especially involving US government and America
concealing information from the public. First off, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) is moving towards the elimination of
rules “that prohibit the same company from owning daily newspapers
and TV stations in the same market” (Bennett 1). Kevin Ramirez of
AWOL magazine spoke out against this idea saying that
“the media by and large has become a funnel for information
for the Pentagon and Department of Defense to manufacture
consent and create the atmosphere of mainstream approval
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for the way Bush is executing the war on terrorism and the
imperial aggression in Iraq. It is clear that the media is
being held accountable to the corporations that own it, that
are also involved in the industries of arms manufacturing. I
oppose the possible FCC decision because further media
consolidation will only make this worse” (Bennett 3).
Kevin Ramirez thoughts on government may not be far from the truth as
evident in the testimonies of many famous and popular journalists where
they were prevented from reporting scandalous news. For example, Jane
Akre of Fox News said that she attempted to report an honest story but
was not allowed by the Fox manager, he said, “we paid 3 billion dollars
for these TV stations…we’ll tell you what the news it…the news in what
we say it is” (“Media Cover-up” 1). Similarly, Kristina Borjesson of CBS
observed a man swiftly removed from a press conference for asking a
controversial question (“Media Cover-up” 1).
Since the incident of 9/11, guided by top strategist Karl
Roves, the Bush administration has strived to exploit this tragedy
at every turn. Then after the Iraq invasion when Bush’s popularity
was decreasing dramatically, they had to rely heavily on images
and rhetoric about September 11, frequent invocation of 9/11
events were a form of patriotism for America. However, it is
evident the Bush and Roves have run out of tricks to control the
media and thus Bush’s popularity is at its lowest point (Solomon
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1-2). Today it is really the military that is pursuing a policy of
“embedding” journalists with US units, and the Bush
administration did well for a while, but they can only do so much
until the all powerful media completely takes over again.
Conclusion:
As we have shown the media uses many tools to its advantage to
control many different aspects of life in the United States. Through such
outlets as propaganda they can sway support for the country and the
President exponentially. The media has a lot of power to direct focus of
the nation where they want and due to many factors that control media
sectors biases toward the president are seen through the types of stories
and stance seen throughout the media. There are perpetual changes
seen in the media when different president decisions affect large
corporations and other outlets. Since 9/11 the media has changed its
stance on United States actions many times and with each of these shifts
in stance major movement is seen within the public’s opinion of actions
being taken. With their power, the media effects how the American
public responds to the president and his decisions.
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Works Cited
“Action Alert: How Many Dead? Major networks aren’t counting”.
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